.TH WHOIS 1 "Oct 2, 2009"
.SH NAME
\fBwhois\fP
\- Internet domain name and network number directory service
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBwhois\fP
[\fB\-aAbfgiIklmQr\fP]
[\fB\-c\fP \fIcountry-code\fP | \fIFl\fP h \fIhost\fP]
[\fB\-p\fP \fIport\fP]
\fIname\fP...
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
\fBwhois\fP
utility looks up records in the databases maintained by several
Network Information Centers (NICs).

The options are as follows:
.TP
\fB\-a\fP
Use the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) database.
It contains network numbers used in those parts of the world covered neither by
APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC, nor by RIPE.

(Hint: All point of contact handles in the ARIN whois database end with -ARIN.)

.TP
\fB\-A\fP
Use the Asia/Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC) database.
It contains network numbers used in East Asia, Australia,
New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
.TP
\fB\-b\fP
Use the Network Abuse Clearinghouse database.
It contains addresses to which network abuse should be reported,
indexed by domain name.
.TP
\fB\-c\fP \fIcountry-code\fP
This is the equivalent of using the
\fB\-h\fP
option with an argument of \fIcountry-code\fP.whois-servers.net.
.TP
\fB\-f\fP
Use the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) database.
It contains network numbers used in Africa and the islands of the
western Indian Ocean.
.TP
\fB\-g\fP
Use the US non-military federal government database, which contains points of
contact for subdomains of
\fI\&.GOV\fP.
.TP
\fB\-h\fP \fIhost\fP
Use the specified host instead of the default variant.
Either a host name or an IP address may be specified.

By default
\fBwhois\fP
constructs the name of a whois server to use from the top-level domain (TLD)
of the supplied (single) argument, and appending .whois-servers.net .
This effectively allows a suitable whois server to be selected
automatically for a large number of TLDs.

In the event that an IP
address is specified, the whois server will default to the American
Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN).
If a query to ARIN references APNIC, AfriNIC, LACNIC, or RIPE,
that server will be queried also, provided that the
\fB\-Q\fP
option is not specified.

If the query is not a domain name or IP address,
\fBwhois\fP
will fall back to
\fIwhois.crsnic.net\fP.
.TP
\fB\-i\fP
Use the Network Solutions Registry for Internet Numbers
(\fIwhois.networksolutions.com\fP)
database.
It contains network numbers and domain contact information for most of
\fI\&.COM\fP,.NET,.ORG
and
\fI\&.EDU\fP
domains.

.B NOTE !
The registration of these domains is now done by a number of
independent and competing registrars and this database holds no information
on the domains registered by organizations other than Network Solutions, Inc.
Also, note that the InterNIC database
(\fIwhois.internic.net\fP)
is no longer handled by Network Solutions, Inc.
For details, see
\fIhttp://www.internic.net/\fP.

(Hint: Contact information, identified by the term
.IR handle ,
can be looked up by prefixing "handle" to the NIC
handle in the query.)
.TP
\fB\-I\fP
Use the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) database.
It contains network information for top-level domains.
.TP
\fB\-k\fP
Use the National Internet Development Agency of Korea's (KRNIC)
database.
It contains network numbers and domain contact information
for Korea.
.TP
\fB\-l\fP
Use the Latin American and Caribbean IP address Regional Registry
(Tn LACNIC)
database.
It contains network numbers used in much of Latin America and the
Caribbean.
.TP
\fB\-m\fP
Use the Route Arbiter Database (RADB) database.
It contains route policy specifications for a large
number of operators' networks.
.TP
\fB\-p\fP \fIport\fP
Connect to the whois server on
\fIport\fP.
If this option is not specified,
\fBwhois\fP
defaults to port 43.
.TP
\fB\-Q\fP
Do a quick lookup.
This means that
\fBwhois\fP
will not attempt to lookup the name in the authoritative whois
server (if one is listed).
This option has no effect when combined with any other options.
.TP
\fB\-r\fP
Use the R\(aaeseaux IP Europ\(aaeens (RIPE) database.
It contains network numbers and domain contact information
for Europe.

The operands specified to
\fBwhois\fP
are treated independently and may be used
as queries on different whois servers.
.SH EXIT STATUS
The \fBwhois\fP utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
.SH EXAMPLES
Most types of data, such as domain names and IP addresses, can be used as
arguments to
\fBwhois\fP
without any options, and
\fBwhois\fP
will choose the correct whois server to query.
Some exceptions, where
\fBwhois\fP
will not be able to handle data correctly, are detailed below.

To obtain contact information about an
administrator located in the Russian TLD domain RU,
use the
\fB\-c\fP
option as shown in the following example, where
\fICONTACT-ID\fP
is substituted with the actual contact identifier.

whois -c RU CONTACT-ID

(Note: This example is specific to the TLD RU,
but other TLDs can be queried by using a similar syntax.)

The following example demonstrates how to query
a whois server using a non-standard port, where
``query-data''
is the query to be sent to
``whois.example.com''
on port
``rwhois''
(written numerically as 4321).

whois -h whois.example.com -p rwhois query-data
.SH SEE ALSO

Vic White and Ken Harrenstien, \fINICNAME/WHOIS\fP, 1 March 1982, RFC 812.
.SH HISTORY
The
\fBwhois\fP
command appeared in
4.3BSD.
